This week we have been focused on a project called, ‘all about me’ - children have been encouraged to look at themselves in a mirror and talk about what they see, before then painting their own self-portraits; these are now proudly displayed around the room. Following on from this theme, the children have had face and people puzzles at the puzzle table, and added features to face templates at the drawing table. We’ve also enjoyed a book called, ‘It’s Okay to Be Different’ – which celebrates the differences we all have. Our self-portraits sparked much discussion about hair – so the children opted for our hairdresser role play this week, giving an interesting array of hair styles both on our style dolls and on staff!

We’ve enjoyed water play this week – children have taken turns to use fishing nets in our water table, pour water down our water wall, and used paint brushes and buckets of water to ‘paint’ the fences. On Thursday we also decided to have a ‘washing’ day – we filled our buckets and washed all of our babies, baby clothes, chairs and anything else we could find!

Both kitchen areas have been popular this week - indoors, the playdough was used as a main ingredient in our ‘worm’ meatballs, whereas outdoors, children noticed how dry the soil had become, and enjoyed mixing it with water to turn it back into mud!

To end the week, some of the children turned their thoughts towards going to ‘big’ school. Children were discussing how they would get to big school – walking, driving, or maybe on a bus. The children used a large canvas to display this artistically – they helped draw on their home and school and then showed ‘walking’ by stomping a footprint stamper across the canvas, drove cars through paint to represent driving – some even seemed to suggest they would be arriving at school on the back of a dinosaur – stamping a dinosaur through the paint and across the picture – this offered children a lovely opportunity to explore their thoughts about going to big school and to let them think about it in a fun way.

New words we have learned this week:‘Shade & sail’ – from the shade sail we’ve had up all week to protect us from the sun.

Ideas to continue this weeks’ fun at home:Why not talk about similarities and differences at home too – it can be really fun looking for things in common - children can be very imaginative in what they notice!

We have further developed our gardening theme this week by setting up our role-play area as a gardening shop. The children were able to buy an array of seeds, flowerpots and fir cones which, as the week went on, expanded to include Thomas trains and soft toys after a child’s request to turn the shop into a toy shop! This role-play offered children a lovely opportunity to demonstrate their turn-taking and sharing – taking turns as the shopkeeper and sharing the shopping baskets. They also made their own paper money - offering children a chance to start using the language of money and using numbers in their play.

Another popular activity this week was cooking. The children were invited to help make cheese scones on Wednesday – weighing out the various ingredients, helping add them to the mixing bowl, mixing the ingredients together, and then rolling out the mixture and cutting it into circles. The children really enjoyed helping to cook - it enabled them to use numbers as they weighed and measured the different ingredients, as well as using different tools such as mixing spoons, rolling pins and cutters. It also introduced simple science concepts as children observed how the different ingredients combined to form a wet doughy mixture and how this changed once the scones were cooked.

We were also busy in the garden. The wet weather hasn’t stopped us having fun with a focus on group games requiring children to listen and follow simple instructions. Children were asked to run around and then, on hearing a whistle, had to either; freeze, jump up and down on the spot, hop on one leg, stretch up high etc. We’ve also revisited some old favourites, including, ‘Duck, Duck, Goose.

New words we have learned this week:During cooking, children learnt that combining the flour and butter with their fingertips is called, ‘rubbing’.

Ideas to continue this weeks’ fun at homeWhy not cook together at home – it’s great fun and you could find that a fussy eater may be more inclined to sample a dish that they’ve helped create!

After the enthusiasm for last weeks’ potting up of flowers, we have been busy with more planting! Our focus this week has been on planting individual sunflower seeds for the children to take home. This inspired lots of interesting conversations about how to look after seeds, with children suggesting everything from water to potatoes as essential components of growing! We hope the children will enjoy taking care of their seeds, watering them a little each week, and watching them grow! Feel free to share photos or updates with your child’s key person.

Our Jolly Jo session this week linked in with a story that the children have enjoyed recently - Jack and the beanstalk. We first climbed our beanstalk, took some giant sized footsteps, and then had to capture the golden egg (a yellow rugby ball!) and race away before the Giant caught us!

Story telling has been popular this week – on Wednesday we sat as a group outside to share the tale of the Gruffalo! We used one of our story sacks full of props to help bring the story to life - the children were very excited to meet the fox, the mouse, the owl, and the snake, and of course... the Gruffalo himself!

The paint table has also been busy this week with bugs and butterflies. The children chose a range of bug themed stencils to create a collection of mini beasts. We also used a technique where children painted half of a butterfly, then folded their paper in half, before then opening it out – the children were amazed to see how their painting was mirrored onto the other side of their butterfly, some also observed how the colours had mixed together!

New words we have learned this week:Seed / Grow

Ideas to continue this weeks’ fun at homeWhy not see what props you can find to support story telling at home? You could even make your own – draw or stick pictures of favourite characters on to lolly sticks or wooden spoons and help your child act out their favourite stories.

As we head into spring our thoughts have turned to growing; on Tuesday the children helped us to pot up flowers into old wellies to make a colourful display for the garden. They also helped mix grass seed and compost which was then scooped into a pair of old tights! This is for our caterpillar project which will be on-going over the next few weeks as we watch our pair of tights transform into a grassy caterpillar!

The planting helped to inspire some lovely art work – the children worked together to paint large pictures of our potted flowers. We talked about what flowers might need to help them grow - the children agreed they need sun and rain, so a big yellow sun and some blobs of rain were added to our masterpieces!

Musical instruments proved popular on Wednesday – the children came together in a large group as we explored the different sounds each instrument made. We explored how the instruments could be played loudly, quietly, slowly, and fast, and then enjoyed playing along to some of our favourite songs.

On Friday the children experienced a new sensory material – shredded paper! This offered an unusual, yet tactile material for their messy play. A large container was filled with the shredded paper, and we made a treasure hunt style game by hiding zoo animals in it! The children enthusiastically searched through the paper to find the different animals, and then enjoyed hiding them again for their peers to have a go – they also simply enjoyed the feel of the paper – running their hands through it and throwing it into the air! It’s often surprising to observe how simple ideas prove to be some of the most popular!

New words we have learned this week:Growing / Shredded

Ideas to continue this weeks’ fun at homeWhat gardening projects could you share at home? The children enjoyed helping to pot up flowers into old wellies – maybe they could help to pot up plants at home too? A herb box for the windowsill or a pot of colourful flowers offers children a wonderful opportunity to watch how things grow and change over time.